The dance team has had an amazing winter season so far. They have been working hard to prepare for this season since fall, learning new dances and choreographing new routines. So far, they have received great comments and scores for their routines.

The winter season is the most intense and busy time for the team. It is when they perform at their highest level of concentration and precision since the team has to compete at the NLCC Conference and IHSA Sectionals.

“It has been very good. We’ve grown so much as a team. We’ve gotten good scores and great comments on our routine,” said varsity dancer Niah Robinson.

The team has been performing choreography to a remix of Destiny’s Child “I’m A Survivor” And Britney Spears “Toxic.” Dance started this season off at the Mundelein High School Invitational, going through two more invitationals until the NLCC Conference where varsity was up against Warren.

“Our best competition, I would say, would be Sectionals at Warren because our scores went up higher than we’ve ever seen before, and I think we really outdid ourselves that day,” Robinson said.

Although scores are yet to be released, the coaches state that both junior varsity and varsity have ended the season with their highest scores so far.

“It challenged us,” said Coach Cassie Cowperwaite. “I wish there were more teams that were hiphop teams so that we had more to compare to.”

Although competitions can be a little scary at first, the dancers always do their best on the floor, with the help of two new coaches. Cowperwaite is now the new varsity coach, and some new faces have been added to the team. A sudden switch of coaches would be quite difficult for the athletes, and the team had a hard transition at first to the new coaches. But in spite of that, the team has managed to improve drastically thanks to the help of the new coaches.

“It was great, but we were all pretty tired because it was after school, but we still try to have a good time and hype each other up,” Robinson said.

Although this can be very stressful for many of the dancers, they continue to perform flawlessly at every show, helping build a stronger connection within the team as they push and motivate each other to perform the best that they can.

“I feel like this year we’re getting closer as a family even with these new coaches. They feel like family members. This whole team feels like a whole family, and we have such a closer bond than we did before last year,” Robinson said.